A Life Taken, A Life Given Away
by the laws of transitivity
Summary: Okay, this one is a bit depressing, but I swear I worked really hard on it! Takes place at the end of the first movie. Toad's final thoughts as he sinks into the Hudson.


_Yes, I'm going a bit songfic crazy. Deal with it, and review, you lazies._ _Song is "Who Needs Air?" By The Classic Crime_ A Live Taken, A Life Given Away

My skin is on fire, just about. I feel it peeling as it cooks in the energy of lightning. I look at Storm, for a moment, feeling more terrified than I've ever been. There's no mercy in her gaze as my tongue whips back into my mouth, and I fall away from the statue. I smolder uncontrollably- it doesn't hurt, though. My nerves have given into that wonderful thing they call shock. The X-Woman is farther away now, and I'm soon enveloped in darkness, wetness.

_**I long to taste adventure like the nature of the sea,  
Always moving, always hiding all the creatures from beneath.  
Singing silent songs of sadness my heart waits for its chance,  
To dance upon the ashes of my burned up little plans.**  
_

They may have thought so at the orphanage, and even in the Brotherhood, but I'm not stupid. I'll die here- my fight is lost. They'll do okay without me, though. I've bought them enough time to go on with the plan. Soon the machine I built will sweep over all of New York, and Magneto's utopia will be that much closer to reality. I'm proud to have made this all possible. For once, I'm not useless, not a burden. If I thought I'd ever be able to see again anyways, I'd close my eyes to keep the filthy water of the Hudson out, but this is the last thing I'll see. So I just stare upwards through the darkness at the vague blurs of light above me. The Toad has served his purpose.

**_And I stand alone before the night.  
My nakedness is so clear in the glow of the moonlight.  
Life is old but so short.  
We are young we want more._**

Soon, the world will be a better place for all of them. I always knew I'd never get to see it, but I'd never doubted for a second that Magneto could make it happen. Mutant children can grow up in peace now. They'll laugh and go to school and be loved just like they ought to. The world will make no more monsters like me. It's not the green skin or the warts that makes me a monster either. Magneto has taught me not to be ashamed of that. It's the hate in my veins, the blood on my hands; that's what makes me a monster. At least now, though… now I can die knowing that I've done my part to bring peace upon this world.

**_I'm drowning, but I don't care,  
Because when you got what I got, what I got, what I got  
Who needs air?  
_**

I vaguely feel my lungs quivering in my chest as they draw in breath after breath, and find nothing but water. My limbs are immobilized from the electricity that has ravished my body, so there's no hope of swimming to the surface. Which is just as well. I know I'd never be useful again after this, and I don't think I could stand being a burden. This new world would be a good place, and all the better without me.

**_You don't need air.  
_**

The blobs of light are gone now, though I'm not sure if I'm just too deep to see them now or if my eyesight is gone. I do hope Magneto's proud of me. I think he'll be proud.

**_My addiction to danger like the rush of the sea,  
Like a wave on the rocks the lessons crash down on me.  
I don't need to prove the world to you only to myself.  
So step back and look away as I dive into the swell._  
**

It's funny, having all this time to think about things before I die. Actually, I suppose it's barely been a couple minutes, but it feels like hours. Just sinking down and down to the depths where they'll never find my battered body. No one will see it again, no one will jeer at it. I always expected to die in battle, but I'd envisioned being shot or stabbed, having my neck snapped, maybe. I'd just collapse to the ground in a heap, and that would be it. No thoughts about it. I think I prefer this, though. It's rather peaceful.

**_I'm drowning, but I don't care,  
Because when you got what I got, what I got, what I got  
Who needs air?_**

I'd never been much to think about Heaven. Sure, at the orphanage they taught the students all about God and Christ and all that. I was mostly tied up in the basement, but I heard some of it. I'm not so sure where I'll end up. Hell would make sense. I've killed more people than anyone will ever know- and I laughed about it. Then again, I did it all for this. For the thought of a little mutant child who is born into a family who loves them, freak or not. It was all for that child. It might be nice for it all to just end, though; for there to be nothing at the end of the tunnel at all. I'm tired of existing, to tell you the truth.

**_I'm drowning, but I don't care,  
Because when you got what I got, what I got, what I got  
You don't need air.  
_**

Really, though, I don't know that Hell could bother me so long as I knew I'd made a better world for them. Torture me all you like, I can die happy knowing that none of them turn out like me.

**_Take me down to the river like a little child,  
Take my hand and tell me its okay to be wild.  
I never knew the world until I saw through your eyes,  
I never knew my self until I ripped off my disguise._ **

I don't think I'm breathing anymore. Fairly sure I'm not. I can't feel a thing but the thoughts in my own head, and even those are growing fuzzy.

_**I'm drowning, but I don't care,   
Because when you've got what I got, what I got, what I got  
Who needs air?** _

It's time, then, isn't it? This is where I end, and that's how my cards finally fall. I feel oddly certain. About what, I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm finished- complete. I've done all I could, and I did it the way I was meant to.

**_I have come to the realization that life_**

_**Is more than what I have accomplished.  
And life is more then the realization **_

_**That we have accomplished nothing at all.**  
_

We all have a reason for being here, I think, if not multiple reasons. My reasons are up, and now it's time that I drift away. I'm not sure where I'm headed, or if I'm headed anywhere at all, but it doesn't scare me one bit.

_**True success is so selfless so drown in the lyrics of your life**_

_**And give up the air that you breathe.  
You don't need anything.**_


End file.
